


Bedtime stories

by dimtraces



Series: The blue man [6]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If FN-2187 doesn’t think too hard about the implications of General Hux’ megalomaniac speeches, he might almost enjoy them. Well, he enjoys what comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime stories

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: None except for the general child soldier situation.

“Your General,” the blue man declares, when FN-2187 has shaken the stiff posture of his impressions from his limbs, “is an _idiot_.”

FN-2187 grins. “He’s mentioned it every morning speech for two weeks now!”

“I am sure he’s very proud of having thought of it.” The blue man pulls a face, disgusted. “It is not even a very new idea. Thirty years ago, a man named Tarkin thought much like your General Hux dreams. Pour all your resources into a scarcely manoeuvrable battle station, and put all your troops there. A massive weapon to destroy planets, and make the rest cower at his feet. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.”

It’s a shame the blue man is content just leaning against the wall, FN-2187 thinks, because with a bit more effort put into it this could’ve been an A+ Hux. The words are practically identical.

The blue man smiles. His eyes are as cold as the conditioned air. “Do you know how Tarkin died, young one?”

“Never got mentioned.”

“He was blown up by his own battle station. He might as well have painted a target on his face: It’s a death-trap. There is no way off. And there is always a mechanical weakness that’s easy to hit, and there are always brave pilots that will not bow down in fear. Which is, unfortunately,” the blue man drawls, “why we cannot hope that Hux will go the way of Tarkin. It may be true that the Emperor had a second one built, scarcely four years after the first one died along with more than a million soldiers. And Alderaan.” The blue man’s face is flat as a mask. “But surely, the folly of _once again_ building _the same_ superweapon, for _yet another_ scrappy rebellion pilot to shoot down, died when the second technological disaster was destroyed _yet again_ _in exactly the same way_!”

“Sure you’re not putting too much trust in them?” FN-2187 yawns, and scoots a little closer to the blue man. It’s cold, he tells himself, as he leans his head against the translucent shoulder. He closes his eyes, and lets the blue man’s comforting treasonous whispers wash over him.

The first time something like this had happened, he had been terrified.

Not only at being invited to question—out loud, with _words_ —something the Order’s said but at the blue man’s ability to, with one single contemptuous snort, rock the foundations of the only world FN-2187 has ever known.

(He’d just passed some kind of milestone visible only to Phasma—certainly not to his friends anyway, as Zeroes had refused to talk to him for a week, grumbling about ‘suck-ups’ every time FN-2187 had been almost out of earshot—and had been sent to do extra, officer-track things in addition to the shooting ranges and hours of drills, and he’d suddenly been asked to _think_. Or pretend to, anyway: Finn has learned very young that when people say, “What is your opinion, trooper?”, what they really mean is “Please give me an excuse to hit you.”

He’d been so nervous. He’d typed out his answer on his pad, painstakingly mentioning everything he’s been told and rephrasing it so it didn’t look as if he’d seen through their trick anymore, and then he’d asked the blue man to listen to his prepared “opinion” on how the First Order’s organizational structure was a microcosm of the glorious society they were going to rebuild.

“Might as well be,” the blue man had said drily. “Government, insurgency. There’s always scum at the top giving the exact same speech.”)

The first time had been terrifying. But it isn’t the first time now.

By now, FN-2187 has made almost a game of it, keeping awake even through the most tedious of lessons and speeches, always alert. Always memorizing. Breathlessly hunting for _it_ , the inevitable comment that’s sure to set the blue man off when he recounts it later. That’s going to lead to more stories about the world out there. The world that FN-2187’s never seen, the world he is never going to see except through the helmet’s viewscreen and down the barrel of a blaster—at least until he gets away, he reminds himself. Until he gets away…

The blue man has a lot of stories: He appears to have seen everything, been everywhere, met everyone… and judged them all to be incompetent. Like the Old Republic, which FN-2187’s only heard about a few times—although he has even less to say about the New Republic, generally. (FN-2187 has his suspicions about when the blue man died.)

He always has an opinion on military strategy and weaponry and starships.

He knows about the Old Empire, too. Not the lessons FN-2187 knows, usually, although there were many—all the top brass, especially Kylo Ren ( _Ben_ , FN-2187 remembers), are enamoured with it.

He knows the price it exacted.

He knows it failed.

FN-2187 is truly greedy for these stories, of the brave and caustic princess Leia Organa who lost her home, who witnessed its destruction and stood strong and brought the Empire to her knees and rebuilt it a Republic. And Luke Skywalker, a strangely detail-less and detail-oriented—FN-2187 is not entirely sure why it matters that the blue man doesn’t know his favourite food—tale of a man who’d left his aunt and uncle’s moisture farm for the rebellion and to become a Jedi, who'd turned the Emperor’s dog against him. (“A scant few months of training!” the blue man insists. “And yet, he dared face…”)

It’s not very often he appears, the blue man, and unpredictably, and sometimes during training when FN-2187 has no hope whatsoever of successfully sneaking away, and always just in time to remind FN-2187 to hide himself when he slips up—whenever he questions that strange convenience, the blue man just replies, “It is the will of the Force,” a curious proud twist to his lips.

But when he appears and they’re alone and when FN-2187 has just learned something obviously _wrong_ …

Well, on those days, like tonight, his nights dwindle down to two, to one, to zero hours of sleep.

FN-2187 doesn’t care.

It always makes the blue man angry that FN-2187 doesn’t care, which is… kinda nice. Sometimes, when it gets this late, when the blue man pokes him to check whether he’s awake, and FN-2187 has to distract him by pointing at random droids and pretending they’ve malfunctioned today, so he can sneak out a sudden yawn behind his hands or hide the fluttering of his eyelids—when it gets this late, the blue man simply picks him up and carries him over to the dormitory and then his bed, whispering about prudence and not giving the masters an excuse.

FN-2187’s not telling him that making, to anyone else’s eyes, a kid float over to his bed isn’t exactly the epitome of caution.

It’s too nice.

.

(Years later, FN-2187’s company is moved to the new snow-covered base and—well, FN-2187 is never going to not know a single insult if he’s in Hutt space, is what happens.)

**Author's Note:**

> I've doctored around with this for long enough. I think
> 
> Hux most likely isn't responsible entirely by himself for Starkiller Base being built, but Finn wouldn't know since he's going by speeches and Anakin doesn't care.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
